Georgian Dream voices election initiative

The ruling Georgian Dream party has addressed the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) with an initiative to amend one of its rules before the June 15 elections.

The country’s Vice Prime Minister and head of the Georgian Dream electoral campaign Kakha Kaladze appealed to the CEC to change the regulation which said if a portion of politicians removed their candidatures from a party’s list, the full list would be removed.

Kaladze said this appeal was not an attempt to favour the Georgian Dream party, but to create a free and fair election environment for all political players.

Kaladze said Georgian media had recently reported several cases when opposition candidates had been pressured to remove their names from their party list. He said he did not believe any of those cases were true as they had not been "backed up by any facts”.

"However, the Georgian Dream represents the ruling party and we understand that any case of pressure will damage our party. The coalition is responsible to hold fair and democratic elections,” he said.

He asked the CEC to change this regulation in order to help opposition parties represent themselves freely at the elections.

In response to Kaladze’s statement, CEC chairperson Tamar Zhvania said Parliament, not the CEC, was eligible to change election regulations.

She added the CEC was currently discussing the cases of reported pressure on opposition candidates.

Under the current regulations, if there are more than 75,000 registered voters in a district, a party should have at least 15 candidates in its proportional list in this district. If there are less than 75,000 voters, a party must have at least 10 candidates.

Two days before the Election Day if the number of the candidates were less than this, the party will not be able to participate in the election in that particular district.